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Mosquee Sidi Lakhdar - Site of August 1934 pogrom, New Constantine, Algeria

Description

Khalifa, a tailor and a member of the Third Zouave Regiment, the French infantry unit stationed in Eastern Algeria[3] during France’s colonial control of Algeria (1830-1962), lived with his family in close proximity to the Sidi Lakhdar Mosque.[4] This required for Khalifa and his family to pass directly in front of the Mosque’s window to access their home, which led Khalifa to the Mosque’s doorstep on the fateful night of Friday, August 3.[5]

A photo of the mosque circa 1900 can be found here

According to Khalifa, as he was returning home with his wife and children, he witnessed naked worshippers washing themselves at the Mosque in preparation for the evening prayer. Khalifa subsequently took his family home. He returned to the Mosque to ask its congregants to refrain from letting their nudity be visible to his wife through the Mosque’s windows, and he was met with insults. A heated argument broke out between the two parties.[6] According to the Mosque’s patrons, Khalifa was inebriated; he insulted Islam and their practices through the window, which prompted them to respond in kind as the confrontation intensified.[7]

The incident quickly drew a crowd of angry locals, who gathered in front of Khalifa’s home later that evening. The local police force was able to calm the agitated crowd within a few hours, but at around 11 p.m., the crowd had rapidly reformed, armed itself, and swelled in size to a mob of almost two thousand individuals.[8] The mob subsequently moved as a bloc into the place des Galettes, a neighboring plaza where both the Mosque and Khalifa’s home were located.[9] The mob attacked Jewish businesses and passersby, but was successfully quelled by local police forces in the wee hours of the night.[10]

Despite a brief cessation on August 3, the conflict in Constantine continued into the weekend, intensifying after the cancellation of an event where a popular Algerian nationalist politician, Dr. Mohamed Saleh Bendjelloul, was scheduled to speak. This cancellation sparked rumors that Bendjelloul had been murdered by Jews.[11]

The rioters attacked local Jews, killing dozens and wounding many more over what became known as the Constantine Riots or the Constantine Pogrom.[12] Attacks on Jews in Constantine triggered similar attacks in neighboring towns and cities such as Bizot, El Hamma, and Mila.[13]

Ultimately, the riots were quelled upon the arrival of additional state forces from the capital of Algiers on Monday, August 6.[14] Death toll estimates range from a few dozen[15] to over a hundred,[16] the majority who were Jewish residents of Constantine.

Following the Constantine riots, local Muslim communities participated in months-long boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses, and antisemitic rhetoric and ideas took hold among both non-Jewish locals and French residents of Constantine. These ideas would continue to proliferate for decades in both Constantine and in wider swathes of the country.[17]

Today, the Mosque is still actively in use as a place of worship. It is unclear how many Jews are left in Constantine, as over 15,000 Jews left the city for Israel or France following a wave of antisemitic violence that erupted in the 1950s and 1960s.[18] It is estimated that there are only a handful of Jews remaining in the country.[19]

New Constantine, Algeria

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